Conventionally, systems have been known in which information of food, etc. stored in a refrigerator for example can be acquired from remote locations by providing a camera for example in the refrigerator.
However, since it is not possible to know when instruction for acquiring in-room information will be given from a remote user, the system has been required to keep running in a state capable of receiving such instructions which may be given at any given time and thus, resulted in increased electric power consumption.